TO READ SLOWLY

“But reading as slowly as O’Hara did in 1959 was easier then than now. The concept of being busy had not reached it’s apogee, as it has in the twenty-first century. To read slowly today is not just unfashionable but nearly impossible. We are in a permanent hurry, and even a move to the sticks cannot protect us from the multiple occupations we administer as members of a global, web-connected community. The internet helps us be more efficient. But it also compiles us to do more things with more people, and have less time to read, let alone slowly. The micro-edit, more than macro-, demands an unhurried pace. So, when you get to editing the fine details of your text, find it in your twenty-first-century lives to read at O’Hara’s speed, circa 1959.” – Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself